"By the time of his death, on Christmas Day, 1946, he was widely acknowledged to have become the greatest comic artist ever known."

Born William Claude Dukinfield, he was son of a London cockney who migrated to Philadelphia in the late 1870's

Better known as W C. Fields, he began his performance career as a silent juggler.

Gradually Fields incorporated comedy into his act, before appearing in the Broadway musical comedy Poppy where he played a colourful conman.

From then on, scoundrels would be a particular specialty of the comedian on the big screen.

Famous for his fondness for alcohol, Fields often filmed scenes for movies inebriated. His characters picked fights with children and he loved provoking the censors with double entendres.

All these contributed to Fields becoming a well-loved comic actor.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Lewis Taylor chronicles the incredible life story of W.C. Fields from his childhood as a knockabout street urchin to his heyday as the celebrity who hobnobbed with Edward VII.

W C. Fields: His Follies and Fortunes, rich in both humour and pathos, is as marvellous in as Mr. Fields himself.

Praise for W. C. Fields: His Follies and Fortunes

"Fields makes all the modern beats look like little Lord Fauntleroys He was a supreme artist and a supreme individual and Taylor does him full justice." - Harry Golden

"Robert Lewis Taylor has written a hilarious history of the fabulous comedian, written it with understanding, sympathy and a gay respect for the scandalous facts involved." - The New York Times

"It brings its subject vividly, unforgettably back to life." - The Washington Post

Robert Lewis Taylor (1912-1998) was born in southern Illinois and educated at Southern Illinois University and the University of Illinois. Upon graduation he lived in Europe and in Polynesia; then, after a brief interlude as editor of a weekly newspaper, became a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. In 1940 he joined The New Yorker magazine as a writer of profiles and other long pieces, and remained a member of the staff. Mr. Taylor is author of the-Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Travels of Jamie McPheeters. Taylor also wrote the bestselling biography Winston Churchill: An Informal Study of Greatness.

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